[lrnStats]

You don't need to get the government involved. That destroys small business. You can simply put a guaranteed to last/warranty timer on it.

Heck when we were doing our IOT device we left an offline mode.

[paledot]

You always need to get government involved. The free market can regulate many things, customer interest is not one of them.

[plorntus]

Forgive my ignorance on the subject but if it's not government mandated then what's stopping them from going bankrupt and not respecting the guarantee?

If they set aside no money to keep the promise then they physically cannot do anything about it when they run out of cash to keep the external services running.

[lrnStats]

Sure bankruptcy exists, but that doesn't apply to big companies. Not sure a regulation can even fix that.

[plorntus]

True, big companies would be able to continue the guarantee but if all companies are not forced to set aside some 'contingency' money in the event of failure to keep the services running would you trust them to keep their end of the bargain?

Would that not hurt the smaller companies more since you'd be less likely to purchase from them as theres nothing in place to say they must keep their promises?

Edit: Not saying it shouldn't be an option not to provide the guarantee, just maybe there should be something saying if they do provide it then they must keep their end of the deal in the event of bankruptcy

[paledot]

Even (especially?) oil companies can't be persuaded to set aside money to clean up their own damn wells, or at least their governments can't be persuaded to make them pay. We have zero chance here.

[lrnStats]

This is the risk with government granted corporate licences. Only once I spent 200$ on a no name company. Product was warranty for 3 years.

I was still skeptical but it had lots of good reviews and it was relatively affordable. Nothing life altering if the company failed.

Works still.

[pjmlp]

Sure we need to, this is not anything goes land.